NEWS: Teaching Tolerance?

CULTURE: Teaching Tolerance?

Wilbur Middle School, located in Wichita, Kansas, has banned 'alternative' modes of dress despite a none-uniform policy. Wilbur is just the latest in a long line of schools telling students that dressing like a Goth is out of line while in class.

With certain modes of fashion rising in mainstream popularity, the concept of what is acceptable is yet again being tested. As hippie and punk styles were rejected by society in earlier decades, the penchant of today's youth for dressing "freakishly" is alarming enough to teachers and administrators that it is prompting more and more bans on what a student can wear while at school.

The lesson here is, three Goths are okay, but twelve are just too intimidating.

to be totally honest i had two reactions to this.

one was that i wanted to yell in rage and frustration and smack the computer screen.
the second was that i wanted to cry.

this goes beyond banning offensive slogans and swear-words on shirts. this is dictating what normalcy is. now these kids are not only going to be made fun of by fellow students, but teachers will be able to pass judgement too.

[Edited on Jan 08, 2005 2:20PM]

oh. growl. whatever. i don't dress that way myself, but middle- and high schools shouldn't be given the authority to ban black clothes or hair dye (both of which i have used/worn heavily for years). institute a real dress code if you're going to pull that kind of shit. when i was in middle school they banned backpacks, and my younger sister (who is tiny, quiet, and not at all intimidating) got in trouble for wearing a metallic bracelet because it could have been used as a weapon, or so they thought. in high school they banned "revealing" clothes--aka bras and daisy dukes, which were a regular habit among some of the girls...

i think it's all bullshit.

My response, I wish I had a law degree. It would be so self-gratifying to do a pro=bomo, what the fuck are you thinking, lawsuit on this.

I understand not allowing studded bracelets...but all-black clothing?

Like, what are the beatniks gonna do, man? This rule is like, squaresville.

I agree with Twwly. If you're going to tell kids what they can and can't wear (outside of the traditional "public indecency" laws), just stick them in uniforms, for God's sake.

well atleast the school will be safer now that tyhose 12 students can't dress wierd. we really should put that into consideration. oh wait no i'm sorry it has no direct effect at all on anything of any kind of significance. i really think school should concentrate more on teaching the students education and less on how to present themselves. that may just be me though.

On the one hand it sucks.

On the other hand this stuff went on back when I was in grade school with me and my skater/biker friends. We either ignored them or just wore whatever we could get away with, always sort of testing the line.

I don't know, back then we thought it was sort of cool that stuff we wore wasn't allowed. Made us feel rebellious or whatever. Of course, we were dumb kids...

the whole distracting thing is quite interesting, in my opinion. i'm not goth, but i suppose i dressed "distractingly" in highschool. but if my distracting ass wasn't at that school, i bet a bunch of kids would have done significantly worse academically, considering that i helped a lot of my classmates pass their courses. i myself graduated 7th in my class, and earn over a 3.8 in the honors program at my college. weird kids are kids, too.

if you read the whole article, the principal mentions something about younger kids feeling "intimidated" by this enourmous mob of goths being one of the reasons for the new code. so, instead teaching tolerance for differences, the principal is going to intimidate the "weird" ones. way to go.

but i have to say, after researching this school, i have to applaud some of the parents. if you read reviews of the schools, several parents have commented on the lousy administration and have even gone so far as to find better schools for their kids. at least somebody is sticking up for the oddballs.

i say hurrah.

tell students they can't get prince abert peircings and safty pin them to the inside of thier pants and 80% will do just that.

but individuality will lose meaning in a lame fad.

but i can't wait to see the Robert Smith wannabe jocks having thir moms dress them up as "80's goth"


priceless.

Schools teach little of worth anymore, they don't manage to teach a work ethic (didn't work on me anyhow) and they teach a very strange mixed bag of morals. It's only because this group isn't part of a represented minority such as a religious group that it's even possible to discriminate without legal repercussions.

Do we want to teach kids to descriminate whenever they can get away with it?

As a brit I wore uniform most of my schooling which sucked enough (discrimination against all is as bad as the few) but at least we were all equelly repressed.

yeah, i agree. school shouldn't be about style or social issues, but unfortunately when you stick kids together for 8 hours a day for 12 years, these things become more important than learning.

put 'em all in uniforms but allow the black lipstick and nail polish.

i say whatever. big friggin deal. im all for self expresssioin, but seriously, not a big deal here.

Of course they want you to be a freethinking upstanding individual, as long as your are someone who thinks, and acts like them.

On the one hand, they're creating a highly autocratic, discriminatory policy.

On the other hand, that's a dozen less kids goth'd up...

I'm torn.

i agree with the whole stick em all in uniforms idea, if you are going to ban things that arent offensive, revealing or weapon-like, then thats the only thing that makes sense... this way it just teaches kids that its OK to treat kids who dress "weirdly" differently

Is this really an issue? Are kids who are kept from wearing ratty torn pants any worse off than anyone else? Are people that are forced to wear uniforms less likely to succeed? Crying foul on the loss of individuality has always been silly to me when these things are concerned. You're still plenty an individual capable of expressing yourself, no matter what you're wearing. If all it takes to make you "one of the crowd" is banning your hairystyle and clothing choices, I say it's about time to do some heavy introspection because you are, I'm afraid, nothing but a cliché.

Express individualism through your speech and actions and leave the clothing woes to the preps who have to fork out hundreds of dollars for a pair of beat up jeans.

(Oh, and uhm...If they're individuals, how come they all dress the same? ^^)

[Edited on Jan 08, 2005 5:14PM]

I wonder if any Canadian school has ever done this. Most likely not.

I think it's time for you guys to take a good look at where your country is headed and then get out.

Goth style is a distraction?

Well they had best be baning short skirts, low cut and tight tops for all the girls then.

At school the girls flaunting thier tits and ass were more of a distraction than the goth and punk kids...

Someone needs to have a relatiy check methinks

Quite a lot of public schools in the US do ban revealing clothing, visible bras, miniskirts, visible thongs, pants belted around or below the ass rather than at the waist (good god will that "trend" PLEASE" fucking die soon) etc. When I was in high school (1992-1996) there were quite a few things we were not allowed to wear.

However, "goth" or "punk" clothing were not among the banned things, thank goodness. Neither was unnaturally-colored hair. Students were allowed to express individuality (unless your clothes advocated drug or alchol use, racism, or violence against women), but not overt and gratuitous sexuality.



[Edited on Jan 08, 2005 by Shalome]

I agree that school isn't an atmosphere to make a fashion statement, and that the schools only being re-actionary. But singling out 12 students for merely being more than the previous 3 is contridictory. 3 was a "necessary evil" ?
It almost falls under the category of revealing clothing.. but not quite - I don't see any moral stance. I guess its another example of mainstream sentiment being a "behind closed doors" trend.

Just because two people wear black doesn't mean they dress the same...You're coming off a little arrogant right now..You're making out like these kids should be judged on their motives for wearing their chosen clothes. Why? We're not talking about individuality as being unique amongst homogonized society but as having the choice to follow any trend or none trendy option you choose.

I've been 'called' goth a lot in my life...But really I'm just some guy with long hair and black clothes who doesn't like being labelled...It's not my problem if I conform to a defenition held by others...The only important thing is that I have the freedom to be who I want to be.

If we all wore grey suits we could still be individuals...But for encouraging individuality and originality this is not a good place to start.

[Edited on Jan 09, 2005 3:17AM]